The goal of the NNU-cubesat 2 mission is to test a system for deploying smau, wireless sensor tags from the spacecraft that harvest RF energy and communicate with the spacecraft using backscatter…

This federal contract award, with an ID of NNX16AI77A, was issued by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to Northwest Nazarene University Inc., a private university located in Nampa, Idaho. The $200,000.00 cooperative agreement is for the NNU-CubeSat 2 mission, which aims to test a system for deploying small, wireless sensor tags from a spacecraft that can harvest radio frequency (RF) energy and communicate with the spacecraft using backscatter radio. The wireless sensor tags are intended to provide a flexible sensor communication mechanism and reduce mission risk by simplifying the deployable boom design. The contract does not have a set-aside designation. The benefits of the wireless RF sensor tags include reduced complexity of the deployable boom, elimination of wired connections that could interfere with sensitive measurements, and the use of energy harvesting to minimize sensor mass. The contract is part of NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI) program, which supports the development and launch of CubeSat missions.

The goal of the NNU-cubesat 2 mission is to test a system for deploying smau, wireless sensor tags from the spacecraft that harvest RF energy and communicate with the spacecraft using backscatter radio. The sensor tags could be used to sense many phenomena including, but not limited to, acceleration, electric field strength, magnetic field strength. The wireless sensor tags WIU provide flexible sensor communication mechanism and reduced mission risk by reducing the complexity of the deployable boom design. Benefits of the wireless RF sensor tags include: 1) use of wireless sensor tags reduces the complexity of the deployable boom design. 2) elimination of the wired connection between the deployed sensor and the spacecraft may allow for sensitive electric and/or magnetic field measurements without interference from stray currents that often present on wired connections. 3) use of energy harvesting sensor tags allows the sensor mass to remain smau by eliminating the need for large solar array or large battery. 4) backscatter communication allows the deployed sensor's data to be sent to the spacecraft with nearly zero additional power required from the sensor. We intend to use the heomd cubesat launch initiative (CSLI) for the deployment of the cubesat.